The essence of counterinsurgency strategy (COIN), integral to defeating Sept. 11, 2001-type extremists infecting various Middle East countries, is building confidence among the population. The key is working hand-in-glove with the respective military and civilian authorities to help stabilize their combustible nations so they might be free of the specter of extremist violence, thereby enabling the buildup of family, community and nation, according to each culture's unique and beautiful character. This new, irregular warfare is fought largely on human terrain, about which Gen. David H. Petraeus has written in the COIN bible, aka "FM 3-24" - Field Manual 3-24.

He recently affirmed for me during the American Veterans Center conference that official Washington - far from bloviating when asserting what they would do to win these wars - "gets it" on the fundamentals of COIN and that it is reflected in Situation Room deliberations on Afghanistan. Fortunately, given the high stakes, especially vis-a-vis nuclear Pakistan, when it comes to executing COIN - not just bloviating, er, talking about it - Gen. Petraeus is an impresario...

There is no doubt that the prospects for success in Afghanistan are so bleak right now because former President George W. Bush failed for seven long years to invest the necessary troops, resources or attention to the war. But it is now President Obama’s war, and the American people are waiting for him to explain his goals and his strategy. Mr. Obama was right to conduct a sober, systematic review of his options. We all know what happens when a president sends tens of thousands of Americans to war based on flawed information, gut reactions and gauzy notions of success. But the political reality is that the longer Mr. Obama waits, the more indecisive he seems and the more constrained his options appear.

It has been more than eight months since Mr. Obama first announced his strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, warning Americans that, for them, the border between the two - where Taliban and Qaeda forces have found safe haven - is “the most dangerous place in the world.” And it has been more than a month since his top general in Afghanistan asked for 40,000 more troops, warning that “failure to gain the initiative” over the next year could make it impossible to defeat the Taliban. Americans are deeply anxious about the war. As the debate among his advisers has dragged on, and became increasingly public, many are asking whether the conflict is necessary or already a lost cause. Democratic leaders are among the loudest questioners.

It has become a cliché in Washington that there are only bad choices in Afghanistan. But it seems clear that this is not the time for a precipitous withdrawal, nor can the United States cling to the status quo while the Taliban gains ever more territory and more power. To move forward, Mr. Obama needs to explain the stakes for this country, the extent of the military commitment, the likely cost in lives and treasure and his definition of success...

President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown have turned the focus of Afghan war planning toward an exit strategy, publicly declaring that the US and its allies can't send additional troops without a plan for getting them out. The shift has unnerved some US and foreign officials, who say that planning a pullout now - with or without a specific timetable - encourages the Taliban to wait out foreign forces and exacerbates fears in the region that the US isn't fully committed to their security. "It's not a good idea," said Rep. Ike Skelton (D., Mo.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. "When the area has been stabilized...then it's time to go home. But to set up a timetable for people in that neck of the woods, they'll just wait us out," said Rep. Skelton, a prominent supporter of proposals by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the US commander in Kabul, to send more troops for a counterinsurgency campaign.

Mr. Obama isn't asking for the firm, publicly declared handover dates in Afghanistan that were the feature of early Iraq war plans, according to senior administration and military officials. Instead, the officials said, the administration wants the Pentagon to identify key milestones for Afghanistan to meet, in its governance and the capability of its security forces, and then give a rough sense of when each objective is likely to be achieved. Reaching these goals would allow the US role to shift away from direct combat, allowing troop levels to decline...

Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai has been roundly criticized in the international community for presiding over a corrupt government. A new report reinforces the perception of widespread corruption in Afghanistan, naming it the second most corrupt country of all those surveyed. That worries American policy makers as they deliberate on the future US strategy in Afghanistan. In Transparency International's just-released 2009 survey of world corruption, Afghanistan was only one step above the bottom rung, ranking 179th out of 180 countries surveyed. According to the group's report, only another war-ravaged state, Somalia, is perceived as being more corrupt.

President Barack Obama is considering whether to send more troops to Afghanistan to battle the Taliban. Dispatching more troops would further commit the US to a strategy of counterinsurgency in Afghanistan. The central premise of counterinsurgency is to win hearts and minds and weaken popular support for the insurgents. Georgetown University Security Studies Professor Christine Fair points out corruption concerns policy makers because it undercuts Afghans' support for their government and support among Western nations for the enterprise in Afghanistan...

British forces should buy off potential Taleban recruits with “bags of gold”, according to a new army field manual published yesterday. Army commanders should also talk to insurgent leaders with “blood on their hands” in order to hasten the end of the conflict in Afghanistan. The edicts, which are contained in rewritten counter-insurgency guidelines, will be taught to all new army officers.

They mark a strategic rethink after three years in which British and NATO forces have failed to defeat the Taleban. The manual is also a recognition that the Army’s previous doctrine for success against insurgents, which was based on the experience in Northern Ireland, is now out of date. The new instructions came on the day that Gordon Brown went farther than before in setting out Britain’s exit strategy from Afghanistan. The Prime Minister stated explicitly last night that he wanted troops to begin handing over districts to Afghan authorities during next year - a general election year in Britain...

As President Obama wrestles with whether to send more troops to Afghanistan despite widespread corruption in the government of Hamid Karzai, little attention is being paid to a promising dimension of our efforts to foster reform - a much better approach to building the Afghan police force. This anticorruption agenda does not reduce the need to battle kleptocratic trends in Kabul, but it is a big reason for hopefulness. Although the Afghan police force has shown pockets of promise, and many officers risk their lives daily in defense of their nation, the force has long been a major disappointment. Corruption and drug abuse are rampant. Many citizens prefer to encounter roadblocks and checkpoints run by the Taliban rather than the police because of the latter's penchant for extortion. (On a recent visit to Kandahar and Helmand provinces, I heard about an informal survey of truck drivers in the south that suggested they must pay an average of five or six bribes to the police per journey. More encouragingly, the same poll reported few, if any, extortion demands at army-maintained checkpoints.) Training has been shoddy: In years past, only 20 to 25 percent of police officers received any training before starting the job. Those who join the force frequently quit, sometimes to join the resistance, which often pays better.

But much of this is changing. While there is still a long way to go, new efforts at police reform point to a more encouraging paradigm for improving the competence and integrity of key Afghan institutions. A bill before parliament is likely to soon increase police pay and benefits for the survivors of officers killed in the line of duty. This is expected to help reduce the tendency of police to demand bribes from fellow citizens...

The more President Obama examines our options in Afghanistan, the less he likes the choices he sees. But, as the old saying goes, to govern is to choose - and he has stretched the internal debate to the breaking point. It is evident from the length of this deliberative process and from the flood of leaks that have emerged from Kabul and Washington that the perfect course of action does not exist. Given that reality, the urgent necessity is to make a decision - whether or not it is right.

The cost of indecision is growing every day. Americans, our allies who have contributed their own troops to the struggle against al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and the Afghans and their government are waiting impatiently, while the challenge is getting worse. When Obama became commander in chief, his course of action seemed clear. He was bent on early withdrawal from Iraq and an increase in resources and emphasis on winning in Afghanistan - the struggle he repeatedly called "a war of necessity." ...

... It was my third visit since April to rifle companies in northern and southern Afghanistan. In all, those visits included 40 to 50 shuras (meetings with village elders) and patrols. Some of those patrols stayed on the move for several days, and there were numerous small-arms engagements. In the field, I talked with about 500 American, British, and Afghan troops of all ranks.

Kightlinger’s squad was typical. They were manning one of two dozen outposts nestled among 75,000 residents in a remote district called Nawa. In June, many observers had doubted the wisdom of inserting a Marine brigade into Helmand, which is the center of the world’s heroin supply. All summer, the district market had stood empty; by October thousands of farmers were gathering to trade produce.

But five months has not erased years of distrust and turbulence. After the district governor met with the elders in a key village, the Taliban called their own meeting, which was attended by several of the same elders. The population, though thankful for the security, was hedging its bets. They know the Marines will not stay forever. Billions of dollars already have been spent in development projects to make Americans feel good about our generosity, but nation-building is an endless task. The tribes expect everything but give nothing in return.

It is not obvious that winning the hearts and minds of village elders, or linking villages to Kabul, wins the war. Our soldiers note that the Afghans are happy to accept what we give them but do not reciprocate by turning against the Taliban. The elders don’t raise militias or secure recruits for the army, and they don’t fight; there has been no replay of that scene from The Magnificent Seven in which the terrorized villagers finally rise up against their oppressors. Instead, fearful locals plead with migratory Taliban gangs to move on. A rural population, no matter how content with its government, cannot stand up to such a tough enemy...

President Barack Obama has yet to decide where we're going and what we're doing in Afghanistan, but if the flood of leaks this week is any indicator, he at least has decided what he isn't going to do. He isn't going to be rushed into making such an important decision.

He seemingly is unwilling to buy a pig in a poke from any of the players - not from Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top US military commander in Afghanistan, who wants another 40,000 to 80,000 American troops; not from his own national security wizards who've proffered four different pigs in four different pokes; not from Vice President Joe Biden, who wants to leave the fight to Special Forces and unmanned Predators. The word is that none of the options contains what the president wants to see - an estimate of how many more years beyond the eight already invested would be needed and an exit strategy...

Forget the Vietnam analogies. Influential Australian counterinsurgency adviser, David Kilcullen, says the Obama administration risks a Suez style disaster if it fails to deploy the troop numbers requested by Afghan commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal.

The deep divisions within the administration that have burst into the open in recent weeks along with the long delay in answering McChrystal’s plea for more troops has created deep concerns among NATO allies and has presented an exploitable opportunity for the Taliban, Kilcullen tells Britain’s Guardian newspaper.

Kilcullen, who is an adviser to the State Department, says it would be irresponsible for the administration to opt for any kind of middle ground option that sends less than the 40,000 troops requested by McChrystal. “Time is running out for us to make a decision. We can either put in enough troops to control the environment or we can credibly communicate our intention to leave. Either could work. Splitting the difference is not the way to go,” he is quoted as saying...

A key adviser to Nato forces warned today that Barack Obama risks a Suez-style debacle in Afghanistan if he fails to deploy enough extra troops and opts instead for a messy compromise. David Kilcullen, one of the world's leading authorities on counter-insurgency and an adviser to the British government as well as the US state department, said Obama's delay in reaching a decision over extra troops had been "messy". He said it not only worried US allies but created uncertainty the Taliban could exploit. Speaking in an interview with the Guardian, he compared the president to someone "pontificating" over whether to send enough firefighters into a burning building to put a fire out.

He was speaking as Obama left Washington for a nine-day trip to Asia without announcing a decision on troop numbers. The options being considered by the US have been narrowed down to four: sending 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 or 40,000, the latter the figure requested by the Nato commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal. These would be on top of 68,000 US troops already deployed. The deep divisions with the Obama administration were exposed yesterday by leaked diplomatic cables from the US ambassador in Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, who urged Obama to ignore McChrystal's request unless the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, cleaned up his corrupt government...